w&h’s Best Ever Memoirs

The woman&home team share their favourite memoirs and life stories to inspire your next read

With themes of sibling rivalry, unity and love, this memoir makes for captivating reading, especially when concentrating on the British upper class.

Just when you thought everything had already been written about the extraordinary aristocratic Mitfords, the Dowager Deborah Duchess of Devonshire, chatelaine of Chatsworth, penned this memoir with lots of insightful secrets (like she keeps an Elvis picture in her loo!).

A remarkable woman and tower of strength, she has survived so many sisterly dramas – when society beauty Diana was interned as a fascist, but most notably when sister Unity was accused of hobnobbing with Hitler.

She made Chatsworth the great British country house it is, pioneered organic farming and the introduction of the farm shop but most of all she is perhaps the greatest living legend of British aristocracy and her memoirs make fascinating reading.
Angela Kennedy, Style Director

Life by Keith Richards

After being in one of the world’s biggest and most notorious rock bands for four decades and harbouring a very public and excessive drug habit, you wouldn’t think Keith Richards was alive, let alone coherent enough to remember enough of his time in the Rolling Stones to write a memoir. However, it appears he can and what he recalls is at times laugh-out-loud funny, extremely touching and totally inspiring – not to mention a great read for anyone who can remember their own experiences of the 1960s…

We Need To Talk About Alan by Steve Coogan

I love to escape in a book that really makes me laugh. Steve Coogan’s We Need To Talk About Alan is the tongue-in-cheek life story of his most famous character, Alan Partridge. Silly but very, very funny it makes the commute to work fly, although I do get some funny looks when I giggle out loud!

Memoirs Of An Unfit Mother by Anne Robinson

Ambitious reporter, Fleet Street editor, raging alcoholic, unfit mother, TV superstar who conquered the States: Anne Robinson’s done it all. Her inspirational life story proves that no matter how far you fall, you can always pull yourself back up again. Well worth a read!

An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan

This is an incredibly powerful tale of Brian’s four and a half years as a hostage in Beirut (much of it spent with journalist John McCarthy). It’s completely gripping and, despite the brutality of his experiences, so beautifully written. Keenan’s powers of description are so evocative and his use of language really mesmerising.

A Woman In Berlin by Anonymous

A German woman’s diary recording daily life in Berlin between 20 April and 22 June 1945, as the Second World War ended and the Russian Army sacked the city, this memoir is written with no self-pity but is a harrowing insight into the horrors of what many women experienced while simply trying to survive the aftermath of war. An unputdownable, deeply moving account, the story will stay with you long after you’ve turned the last page.

How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran

Funny and intelligent, Moran’s memoir is full of laugh-out-loud insights you immediately identify with – plus some fairly eye-opening moments too! Feeling like Moran is one of your best friends as you turn the pages, by the end you’ll wish that really was the case, just to be able to continue listening to her brilliantly entertaining stories of life as a woman, mother, wife and journalist.

Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl

If you were nurtured on Road Dahl books as a child then reading about his years as a youngster in the first of his two memoirs, Boy, gives you a greater understanding of where his genius story-telling came from. Compiled predominantly from letters written to his mother while at boarding school, Dahl recounts his most hilarious encounters at school, the injustices along the way and how he dealt with deep trauma in his life (his father and sister dying) – often with wit and humour. Perfect for children and adults alike.

Spilling The Beans by Clarissa Dickson Wright

I particularly loved the first section of Clarissa’s story because her revelations came as such a surprise: I had no idea she had an abusive father or that she was the youngest woman called to the bar – Clarissa was sexy in her day! Not necessarily the most flowing writing style, but very much in Clarissa’s voice throughout, I really warmed to her and the story makes for fascinating reading.

A Life In Movies by Michael Powell

The life story which turned me on to reading memoirs is A Life in Movies by Michael Powell (of Powell and Pressburger fame). Vivid, charming and totally engrossing, this is a real insight into pre-50s cinema and life behind the lense. I haven’t picked it up for years, but just thinking about it has made me want to dip into it again.

Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl by Donald Sturrock

It’s three for the price of one with Roald Dahl – as well as the autobiographies Boy and Going Solo, which cover his life before he started writing, there’s a brilliant recent biography by Donald Sturrock, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl.

Dahl himself admitted to valuing a good story above the truth, so it’s fascinating to compare the biography with Dahl’s own take on events. And his life didn’t exactly want for good stories – names are dropped with abandon from Winston Churchill to James Bond, and there are dazzling anecdotes and poignant insight on each page as we follow Dahl from public schoolboy to ace WW2 fighter pilot and New York socialite, via his tempestuous marriage to a Hollywood star.

But the best is saved for last, as Dahl retreats into his writing shed and we get a glimpse into the creation of those wonderful children’s books.